The good, the bad and.. that’s it

I apologise for the downtime. I just fixed it. If anyone saw some errors when trying to read the blog, well.. let’s hope you won’t see them again.

I have no idea what happened. Yesterday all my sites were fine, this morning none of them worked I even woke up at 7 o’clock, as if i knew… (okay, i didn’t, but what are the odds )

I kept getting errors when trying to acces the sites, errors like “parse error: expected “;” on line <number_of_line> in file <name_of_file>”. I tried to upload each file i got errors on one by one, until i got another nice error: “can’t reach <something about widgets> on file <file_name> on line <number_of_line> “, or something like this.

I’m telling you all this not because it’s damn interesting, but because maybe someone got some similar errors. I uploaded all files from the wordpress version, except the folders. I also had to upload wp-config again, it didn’t work otherwise.

It’s all ok now, let’s hope it stays this way

Since the 1st of june is almost here, maybe a chocolate cake with whipped cream would be a nice idea for kids

This is a simple recipe, doesn’t take to long to prepare and it’s delicious

Here it is, chocolate cake:

You need:

160 g. of flour
150 g. sugar
3 eggs
200 ml. milk
chocolate cream (nutella or any kind)
whipped cream
vanilla sugar
1 small pack of yeast

How to bake: Mix the ingredients: eggs, sugar, milk, flour, yeast and a bit of salt. Place the dough into a cake form, for 30 minutes at 180 degrees. Then cut it in two and grease the bottom with nutella, then with whipped cream. Put the top and sprinkle with vanilla sugar.

Bon apetit and have fun tomorrow

Fashion.. it’s something that these days is quite popular and if you don’t folow the new trends some might think you’re a dork. In my opinion, i really don’t care what the new colors are for the next season, or what the style of your clothes must look like. I always have been a fan of sporty clothes and mainly this is how i dress.

Apparently though, the majority of teenagers these days are very keen when it comes to new fashion trends..

Here in Italy i noticed how cool it is for people to wear their pants as low as possible. I tried it once, just for curiosity (i was at work, in my uniform – a pair of green pants, pretty large ones) and i immediately pulled them back up (my butt looked like a train ran over it, it was that flat!). Others though… wore them as low as they possibly could, just so they won’t fall down completely.

I see people wear their pants like this every single day. I saw different undies, from boxers to pretty colored bikinis.

But fashion isn’t fit for everyone. Some look very ridiculous wearing the pants low like this. Like a boy i saw once in a bus. He was wearing a par of nice bluejeans but when he rised from his chair i actually saw his dorky underwear (those old, very old styled undies..). His pants were so low i don’t understand why he wore them anyway! It’s warm enough outside…

All in all… i prefer to look at myself in the mirror before going out and looking like crap. Maybe for some the new trends fit, but fashion is not for everyone.

Think again before showing yourself on the street looking ridiculous. Create your own style and try to make people admire your clothes, not laugh at you because you have no idea how to dress..

This is like saying “men…” or “oh boy…”, in a sarcastic way.

I’ve been adding my sites to link directories, a few per day not to harm myself with too much work and i noticed the pending list of sites. Now this is the reason i’m writing this…

There are a lot, and i mean a LOT of directories that have no less than.. a few thousands pending links. What’s the use of having a directory if you have thousands and thousands of pending links?! The biggest number i saw was 65.364 links pending… After i submited mine there were 65.366, so i’m hoping maybe in a few years i’ll get accepted or rejected..

I prefer directories that accept sites without reciprocal URL, if i was to add a link for every link directory i submit my site to, i’d need a whole sidebar just for the links. And besides, what’s the use of providing the link if i have to wait years for the directory to accept my site?

I’ve been trying since yesterday to manually create my xml sitemap so that it doesn’t show a list of links, but my actual posts. I saw examples but i still can’t find a way to make it look like the RSS.

I changed my settings in my dashboard but nothing has changed within the sitemap. Still shows a long list of links…

I’m confused.

For the first time in my life i went to a restaurant. By accident My other half and i were invited to a conference in a hotel and for lunch we were all invited to eat at the hotel’s restaurant.

“oh, my”, i thought, “i’m gonna have lunch in a real restaurant”. Expensive food, weiters dressed sharp and everything, just like in the movies Too bad i left dissapointed.

The food was… less than nothing. There were 3 dishes and dessert.

The first dish was a big plate with 3 pieces of transparent meat, coverred with 3 pieces of salad and 3 pieces of a tomato… “great”, i thought, “i will only eat the vegetables but maybe they have something else coming, something more consistent”.
Wrong…

The weiters noticed i don’t eat meat and offered to prepare me something based on cheese instead of meat.

The second dish was a small (and i mean SMALL) piece of lasagna… “ok, this must have been the apetizer. I’m really hungry, when does the real food come?”

It didn’t… For the last dish i got a plate with cheese. 3-4 pieces of cheese, 2-3 salad leaves and a small piece of mozzarella. “oh my god, we’re gonna starve until we get home..”

I always thought that going to a restaurant was something luxurious. For a high price i expected something to ease my hunger but instead i left more hungry than i arrived. Not to talk about my other half, he’s a man, he clearly eats more than me.

Of course the day ended in a fantastic wish to eat a kebab. We felt like 2 people in the dessert and the kebab was our oasis! But we were to tired from all that hunger and went straight to bed when we arrived home

From now on if i really have to go to a restaurant, i promise to eat at home before

I’m back and still alive… I had no internet for 2 weeks, it was awful (trust me, it’s a nightmare playing Heroes and Solitaire for so long).

Italians celebrated Easter last Sunday. They’re catholic, like the Pope All in all i find them pretty boring. They go to their families to have lunch, the streets are empty as my wallet and the only Easter-related products were some chocolate eggs with toys inside.

Easter for me was yesterday. My other half and i were supposed to go on a visit out of town but we didn’t quite sleep and didn’t feel like waking up early. Plus it was raining since saturday.
And this was my first Easter without red eggs.

In Romania we have the habit of saying “Christ came back to life”, but since the holiday already passed i hope everyone had a good time and relaxed

yup.. i actually like to cook

I realized this some time ago.
My dad always used to tell me to go sit in the kitchen with mom, to see how she cooks so i could learn, but I’m a bit too stubborn and didn’t listen (always thought i had all the time in the world. I’m still disappointed that isn’t’ suppose to be true ).

At first i only knew how to make boiled eggs and fried potatoes (even that was a disaster).

Little by little i tried to make other dishes. Classic peas sote, mashed potatoes, vegetable soup… simple foods. Then i thought why not mix more ingredients and see what i obtain. It turned out to be a good idea

I never asked for help or advices. I always preferred to make things by myself (darn stubborness…). I don’t deny there were a lot of times when i had to throw out all the food and order pizza but in time i realized i like to cook.

Since i realized i have a passion for kitchen activities, i started to work on my veggie-food site (i’ve been a vegetarian for almost 5 years).

Cooking is quite relaxing, and i feel great when someone tells me how tasty the food is

I still have to try harder with baking cookies. Rarely they turn out to be eatable.
But i still think i have all the time in the world

I was talking to my other half the other day about sports and i remembered how much i miss it.

I like ‘movement’ since i was little.
My dad had an aunt who was a great ballet teacher. I was 5 and my sister was 3 years old (as far as I remember) when we started taking ballet lessons. I remember my grandma used to pick us up from school and some hours later our mom would come pick us up from granny and take us to ballet lessons.

I also remember mom always told granny the ballet lessons start one hour early, so we’d be there in time because my grandma talks to much and we were afraid of being late.

I think my sister and I took ballet lessons for 4 or 5 years..

After that, there was a looong break from sports. We only used to go out and play with the other kids. oh, and there was a time when my dad and i made push ups, abdominal exercises and all sorts of exercises  we were able to do indoors (he was trying to lose wight and i was also a bit… “balloon style”)

Meantime, in school, i realized i actually like sport classes. And since i used to kick my colleagues ever since i started going to school, i started Wing Tsun classes in the 9th grade.

My mom and my grandma were desperate! I always came home with a new bruise to add at the collection, a new ache (my arm, a foot… something had to hurt).

Mom tried to convince me to quit but i am a bit too stubborn I liked kung fu so much i actually put my grade diplomas on the wall.

I loved practicing wing tsun. It was relaxing and hard at the same time. But it felt good to be able to make 30 push ups without rolling on the floor after, or running or swimming without having to take a break every 2 minutes, or having your colleagues tell you how good you look!

Unfortunately this only lasted for 2 years.

First of all, the ‘teacher’ (wrote it with quotes, let me explain) took this less and less serious. He saw i managed pretty good and at times he asked me to fill his place so he’d go do something else. I wasn’t learning anything new, it began to be a bit annoying.

Then there was my dad who always has to pick on me. “you’re not learning enough for school”, “you’re coming home to late”.. and so on. So one day i remember being so annoyed i said i’ll quit. Since that day i actually quit wing tsun and I’m still sorry.

Luckily  i moved back to the old apartment i grew in. Ramona and I re-bounded and went to karate classes together, for a while. But we quit that too. I was too busy with college, she was too busy with work and so … that was the last time i practiced sports.

My beloved practiced martial arts too He also had to quit because of work and he also missed it.

I miss practicing sports. I remember i felt much better when i came home from classes. I ate better, i slept better, i learned better. Now i feel like a raw vegetable.

But all is not lost. I can’t wait for spring to come (it actually came already but it’s cold outside) and maybe i’ll go jogging on the “public passage” (have no idea how to translate it in english, it’s a long quiet street on which people jog or walk their children… it’s very nice).

I just need.. the mood.

So here I am in Italy for almost 8 months now.
It’s pretty crazy because I never thought about leaving my country. Life in Romania is …well, awfull. You can’t have a decent salary, some have to get 2-3 jobs, they don’t see their families because they work all the time; and there’s others who don’t work at all because they keep whining they can’t find a job but they’re not even looking for one.
I always thought i could have a decent life in my country and still.. i left.

okay, enough winning

I got the taste of a better life from my first salary here in Italy. I could pay the rent, buy clothes and eat a lot and still have plenty of money for going out or for saving. Things that in Romania seem almost impossible.
I met people who started working and after a few days already made a loan in a bank. You can’t do that in Romania, i barely barely got my laptop and i’ve been working for 5 months already and still they didn’t want to approve the loan. Here you need to prove you have a workplace and it’s enough.

But.. things got a bit worse lately. I can’t find a job because of this damn crisis. I went to a lot of work agencies, they didn’t call. I tried to find some work through internet, didn’t work.

Like my sister said, the whole world is falling appart!
Every day i see more and more people begging at the corner of the street or hear about people suiciding because they hav too many debts. It’s to sad to be true..

But still i believe this has to be over sometime. I still believe i’ll have a better life and be able to live decent. I just hope it’ll be over sooner.